gay news Egypt EUROPEAN UNION PARLIAMENT VOICES ITS CONCERN OVER "QUEEN BOAT" FIFTY TWO. Report based on e-mails to GayEgypt.com from Marco Cappato MEP on 23 and 29 October. In the last week the European Parliament has finally rallied to the cause of the Queen Boat 52. An amendment in the European Parliament was added to an otherwise routine report on an Egyptian-European accord. It requested the European Union Human Rights Commission to make clear to the Egyptian Government the parliament's grave concern about the arrest of the fifty two Egyptians because of their sexual orientation. The amendment was sponsored by MEP Ottavio Marzocchi of the Radical Party. The initial signators were fellow party members Marco Cappato and Maurizio Turco and the cosignotors included Boumediene Thiery and Buitenweg of the Greens, Di Lello of the Leftist Union Party and Cushman, Swiebel, Vattimo and Paciotti of the Socialists. 25 OCTOBER UPDATE - ANOTHER 15 MEN ARRESTED According to information obtained by the British Magazine Gay Times ( November issue ) fifteen gay men have been arrested in a police raid on a party in the Giza/Pyramids area of cairo and more gay men have also been detained in Heliopolis. We hope to provide more information soon. POLICE MONITORED "HOAX" ADDRESSES TAHA EL EMBABY HAS PREVIOUS RECORD OF FALSIFYING EVIDENCE. TRIAL VERDICT SET FOR 14 NOVEMBER MEANWHILE THE STATE SECURITY POLICE CONTINUE WITH CLANDESTINE CAMPAIGN AGAINST GAYS. We have received this report of the trial from "Horus." Today, Wednesday October 10, 2001, the trial of the 52 men accused of ‘deriding religion’ and ‘committing immoral acts’ started at 3:15 and finished at 6:30. The Judge listened to the defenses of the lawyers of the detainees from numbers 23 to 52. As in the last trial, on the 3rd of October, all the lawyers asserted that the cases should be thrown out on the grounds that proper arrest procedures were not followed, that the arrests were made completely at random with no prior investigations, and that the charges had been fabricated after the arrests. As evidence of this, they pointed out that 4 of the defendants had given false names and addresses to the police, and the ‘investigation reports’ that were cooked later stated that the subjects (with the false names) had been under police surveillance for a while, at those false addresses! These 4 defendants stated their real names and addresses in the courtroom, after which the prosecution asked that the names be changed on the pretext that these false names were really their aliases! However, the prosecution was unable to explain the matter of the false addresses that had allegedly been under surveillance. One of the young lawyers, Fawzy El Haggan, dropped a bombshell at the end of the hearing by quoting a case with exactly the same details, fabricated for 150 people at almost exactly the same time last year, 25 May 2000, by the same team of arresting officers, led by Taha el Embaby, the prime mover in the case. May is the last month for evaluation of officers’ records, as June is the month when the official reports on officers’ performance come out. The 150 case was thrown out by a judge in a civil court on 27/7/2000 for the lack of any evidence except the officers’ statements – the same as in this case. El Haggan also presented photocopies of 6 case-files from the previous case. In addition, concerning the forensic examination of the men which purportedly ‘proved’ that many of them had engaged in ‘immoral acts’ (a euphemism for anal sex), El Haggan presented a report stating that there are more than 400 errors in forensics department reports annually, and that both the Cairo and Alexandria forensics departments were officially investigated because of this high rate of error on 23/8/2001, only a few days after the reports on this case were written. Some lawyers are optimistic, since it became very clear before the judge that the case is completely fabricated, and that the defendants were arrested for a reason other than contempt of religion or practicing debauchery: mainly because of their sexual orientation, although this is not admitted by either the defendants or their lawyers. But most of the lawyers believe that at least some will receive sentences, at least Sherif, the so-called head of the organization, and some of the men with whom he confessed to having sex. However, all concur that these speculations are dependent on the integrity of the Judge, and that his judgment does not turn out to be manipulated by a phone call from the people who fabricated the case in the first place, or perhaps from even higher up. At the end of the hearing, the judge adjourned the court until 14 November 2001, at which time the verdict will be announced. This verdict, when it is announced, will not be subject to appeal. The minor sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment, plus 3 on probation, has appealed his case. The next hearing, also before a juvenile court, will be on 31 October 2001. There are reports among Cairo’s gay community that arrests are continuing, including an unspecified number of men arrested in Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo, and 15 others arrested at a friendly gathering at the home of one of them in Haram, another suburb of Cairo. Although this information comes from reliable sources, the government has placed a complete media blackout on this news. There has been no mention of this whatsoever in the Egyptian media. It seems clear that the Egyptian government has learnt its lesson from the Cairo 52 case; since such unattractive actions as arbitrary arrests and trumped-up charges, if leaked, endanger its reputation among the international community, the best course is to go on doing them, in complete secrecy. Horus TRIAL POSTPONED AGAIN UNTIL 10 OCTOBER BUT MUBARAK CANNOT EVADE OUR VERDICT ON HIS OWN INVOLVEMENT: GUILTY ! In a trial now bearing a resemblance to the American film "Ground Hog's Day", the prisoners were escorted into Court and the same old arguments were put forward to be followed be the same old decision - yet another postponement. This time a week's postponement until next Wednesday. It is obvious that Mubarak has given instructions that the verdict be delayed to a more opportune moment. Currently US-Egyptian relations are in a delicate state following US threats to act against Afghanistan and possibly other muslim countries. He thinks that so long as no sentence is imposed everyone will forget that these fifty two men are incarcerated and facing daily beatings and mistreatment. He is mistaken. Everyone knows that Mubarak is responsible not just for their continued imprisonment, but also for hiring the thugs in the State Security Police who are responsible for making torture such a routine procedure in police methods. In fact it would not be surprising to find that Mubarak himself had given orders to torture victims. It is the American and other Western governments which continue to prop up Mubarak's corrupt, inept and brutal regime, just as they prop up another whose hands are even bloodier - Sharon. Foreign Policy can not be based on compromise - a regime based on torture, fear and repression - should not continue to receive billions in military aid and neither should Israel receive even greater military aid which is uses to repress the Palestinians. GayEgypt.com is determined to strike hard at the pockets of top Government officials. We already have plans on how to use the internet to persuade people not to use hotels where Egyptian government officials get a large stake of the profits. It involves setting up a new web site which we hope to be in operation by late November. We will keep you posted. |